Download PDF | (Mamluk Studies) Amir Mazor - The Rise and Fall of a Muslim Regiment_ The Mansuriyya in the First Mamluk Sultanate, 678_1279-741_1341-V&R Academic (2015).
313 Pages
Preface and acknowledgements
This book is a revised version of my Ph.D. dissertation, submitted to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 2012. I would like to thank, first and foremost, to Prof. Reuven Amitai, my usta¯dh in both the Mamluk and the academic senses, who gave me the inspiration for this project and accompanied it from its very beginning until its last stage. I am grateful for his meticulous reading of the final manuscript and his important comments and corrections. I would like to thank Prof. Mark Cohen of Princeton University, who gave me the opportunity to conduct the final stages of this research at Princeton University as a one year Visiting Student Research Collaborator in the Department of Near Eastern Studies.
I am grateful to Prof. Stephan Conermann of Bonn University, who encouraged me to publish my dissertation as a book as a research fellow at the Annemarie-Schimmel-Kolleg “History and Society during the Mamluk Era (1250–1517)”, in Bonn (2014–2015). I pay special thanks to Dr. Leigh Chipman, who edited the English manuscript, but was much more than an editor. Her important comments and suggestions contributed to this book being much more accurate, readable and coherent. I would also like to thank to Dr. Katia Cytryn for the cover photo of this book, showing the joint mausoleums in Cairo of two of the heroes of this book – the Mans ˙ u¯rı¯amirs Sala¯r and Sanjar al-Ja¯wulı¯. I would like to thank Juliette Fichtl for her assistance in creating the cover image and the maps. I would like to thank to Cambridge University Press for permission to reproduce maps from: Reuven Amitai-Preiss. Mongols and Mamluks: The Mamluk-¯Ilkha¯nid War, 1260–1281 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995). I would like to note that the last stages of work on this book were carried out while I was a postdoctoral fellow at the ERC-sponsored project “Mobility, Empire and CrossCultural Contacts in Mongol Eurasia”, directed by Prof. Michal Biran at the Institute of Asian and African Studies in the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Finally, I would like to thank my friends and colleagues for their intellectual and moral support during the long years of my doctorate and post doctorate studies. These included my “khushda¯shiyya” and “wa¯fidiyya” co-fellows Or Amir, Na’ama O. Arom, Sariel Birenbaum, Amir Ga’ash, Shira Golani, Juliette Fichtl, Kate Raphael, Yaron Schneider, Shai Shir, Nissim Sofer, Sharon Weisser, Koby Yosef and Jenia Yudkevich. Without all these people this book would have never been written and published. A few final notes concerning the transliteration. In the present study I used a modified version of the Encyclopedia of Islam (2nd edition) system. Common Arabic terms, such as mamluk, amir and sultan, are written without diacritical points. “Mamluk” with a capital letter refers to the Mamluk Sultanate, whereas “mamluk” without a capital letter refers to military slaves in general.
Introduction
1. The origins of the Mamluk sultanate and historical background The origins of the Mamluk sultanate in Egypt and Syria lie among the nomadic tribes of the Eurasian Steppe, a territory that stretches from the borders of China to the Danube River. The Eurasian nomadic tribes included a variety of ethnic groups that were generally known as “Turks”. The steppe-dwelling Turks developed excellent military abilities and weapons. Of special importance was their composite bow, which was more efficient on the battlefield than the medieval European longbow.1 The Arabs became acquainted with the Turkish warriors during the mid 2nd/8th century, as Arab forces approached Transoxania (modern Uzbekistan) and the Caucasian mountains, approximately one hundred years after the birth of Islam and the major Muslim conquests. Impressed by the Turkish mounted archers’ unique fighting qualities on the battlefield, the Arabs started to import these warriors into the heart of the Muslim world. The idea behind their recruitment was to create a better and more loyal army within the Muslim Caliphate. The first ruler to develop an army of Turkish slaves who originated on the margins of the Muslim world, or outside it, was the Abbasid caliph al-Muʿtas ˙ im bi-Alla¯h (r. 218/ 833–227/842).2 The Arabic term for this type of slave-soldier is “mamluk”, which means “owned”.
However, it by no means suggests that the mamluks were of low and humble status, since they usually occupied high military, administrative and political positions. Following al-Muʿtas ˙ im’s reform, in the course of the 3rd/9th, 4th/10th and 5th/11th centuries, several rulers of Muslim principalities in the Middle East based their armies on mamluks, mainly of Turkish origin.3 Consequently, Turkish people soon found their way to high military and administrative positions. Already in 254/868 a Turkish officer named Ah ˙ mad ibn T ˙ u¯lu¯n, who was sent to Egypt by the Abbasid caliph in Baghdad, established himself as independent ruler of Egypt and Syria. In 327/939, another Turkish officer, Muh ˙ ammad ibn T ˙ ughj al-Ikhshı¯d, became the ruler of Egypt and Syria. He and his successors ruled Egypt until 358/ 969.4 In the 5th/11th century, a massive migration of Turks from the steppe areas to the Islamic lands started. As opposed to the Turks who were imported as slavesoldiers during the preceding centuries, this time the Turkish people entered the civilized Islamic world with their families, animals and tents, and brought about an ethnic change in Middle Eastern society. These Turkish invaders came from the Ghuzz or Oghuz (modern Turkish: Og˘uz) tribes, and their leading family was known as Seljuqs. The Seljuq family, who were new converts to Islam, entered Baghdad in 447/1055, put an end to the reign of the Shı¯ʿı¯-Persian Buyid dynasty and had their right to rule over the Islamic world legitimated by the Abbasid caliphs.
The Seljuqs managed to establish a huge empire in the whole eastern part of the Islamic world, stretching from Transoxania in the east to Anatolia in the north-west and the borders of Egypt in the south-west. It was in the Seljuq empire that the Muslim ruler for the first time bore the title of sultan.5 The Ayyu¯bid sultanate that Saladin established in Egypt in 567/1171 included Turkish horsemen in its army as well. In fact, the elite troops and officers of the Ayyu¯bid army were mainly Turkish mamluks. During the reign of the last important Ayyu¯bid ruler, Najm al-Dı¯n al-S ˙ a¯lih ˙ Ayyu¯b (r. 637/1240–646/1249), the reliance on Turkish mamluks increased. Most of the mamluks purchased by alS ˙ a¯lih ˙ Ayyu¯b belonged to the Qipchaq tribes, who were probably not recruited in significant amounts before then.6 Most of the sultans of the first Mamluk period (648/125–784/1382) belonged to this ethnic group of Qipchaq Turks.
The Qipchaqs formed a loose tribal confederation that had settled in the area presently known as southern Russia and the Ukraine, during the 5th/11th century. This region was known as Dasht-i Qipchaq (“the plain of the Qipchaq”). They ruled these territories up until the invasions of Chinggis Khan’s successors in the first half of the 7th/13th century. These invasions eventually brought about the conquest of Baghdad and the fall of the Abbasid Caliphate in 656/1258. However, the Mongol conquests indirectly contributed to the establishment of Mamluk rule in Egypt and Syria, since they created a cheap and plentiful supply of slaves that was cleverly utilized by al-S ˙ a¯lih ˙ Ayyu¯b. Moreover, even during the second half of the 7th/13th century and most of the 8th/14th century, Dasht-i Qipchaq continued to constitute the most important recruitment ground for mamluks, since this area formed the greater part of the Mongol Khanate of the Golden Horde, which was an ally of the Mamluk sultanate.7 The Qipchaq mamluks of al-S ˙ a¯lih ˙ Ayyu¯b were in fact the establishers of the Mamluk sultanate. Al-S ˙ a¯lih ˙ Ayyu¯b built up a force of mamluks as protection against his rivals from within the Ayyu¯bid family, namely his brothers and his father.
The S ˙ a¯lih ˙ iyya regiments (as they called, after their master’s regnal title) included an elite corps, were also named the Bah ˙ riyya because they were garrisoned on Rawd ˙ a Island in the Nile River (Bah ˙ r al-Nı¯l), outside Cairo. The Bah ˙ riyya numbered between eight hundred to one thousand mamluks, and was composed mainly of Qipchaq Turks. Al-S ˙ a¯lih ˙ Ayyu¯b, who ruled Egypt from 637/ 1240, died during the seventh crusade of Louis IX of France in 647/1249. This was shortly after the Crusaders managed to take Damietta and advance southward through the Delta toward Cairo. The excellent warriors of the Qipchaq Bah ˙ riyya defeated the French army in a battle that took place at the town of Mans ˙ u¯ra, about 120 km north of Cairo. During this crisis, al-S ˙ a¯lih ˙ Ayyu¯b’s son, alMuʿaz ˙ z ˙ am Tu¯ra¯nsha¯h, was invited to Cairo to succeed his father as sultan and to lead the Egyptian army against the Crusaders. However, Tu¯ra¯nsha¯h’s rule did not last for long. Tu¯ra¯nsha¯h promoted his own mamluks and appointed them to key positions at the expense of the S ˙ a¯lih ˙ iyya-Bah ˙ riyya mamluks.
This conduct brought about his assassination in Muh ˙ arram 648/May 1250.8 The murder of Tu¯ra¯nsha¯h marked, in retrospect, the beginning of Mamluk rule in Egypt, and a decade later in Syria (i. e. al-Sha¯m, Greater Syria). This rule would last for more than two hundred and fifty years, until the Ottoman conquest in 923/1517. Following Tu¯ra¯nsha¯h’s murder, strife broke out between the Bah ˙ rı¯ mamluks of al-S ˙ a¯lih ˙ Ayyu¯b and the other S ˙ a¯lih ˙ ı¯ mamluks. In the end of the conflict, Qut ˙ uz, who was the senior amir (officer, see below) of the leader of the anti-Bah ˙ riyya coalition, al-Malik al-Muʿizz Aybak, killed Aqt ˙ a¯y, the leader of the Bah ˙ riyya. As a result, most of the Bah ˙ riyya mamluks fled to Syria. In Syria, headed by the future sultan Baybars al-Bunduqda¯rı¯, the Bah ˙ riyya served the Ayyu¯bid prince of Damascus, al-Na¯s ˙ ir Yu¯suf, and afterwards the Ayyu¯bid ruler of Kerak, al-Malik al-Mughı¯th. However, when the Mongols, under the command of Chinggis Khan’s grandson Hülegü, conquered Aleppo and approached Damascus, the S ˙ a¯lih ˙ iyya realized that they must join forces against the threat. Qut ˙ uz, who meanwhile had managed to take the throne in Egypt and was proclaimed sultan, came to terms with his former enemy Baybars al-Bunduqda¯rı¯. The two amirs lead the Mamluk army of Egypt to a brilliant victory over the Mongols, in a battle that took place at ʿAyn Ja¯lu¯t, in northern Palestine, on 25 Ramad ˙ a¯n 658/3 September 1260. Thus, the hitherto invincible Mongol army, which had advanced westwards almost without interruptions since the days of Chinggis Khan, was forced to halt and retreat for the first time.9 However, Qut ˙ uz was murdered shortly after the battle of ʿAyn Ja¯lu¯t and was succeeded by Baybars al-Bunduqda¯rı¯, who took the regnal title al-Malik al-Z ˙ a¯hir. During al-Z ˙ a¯hir Baybars’ reign (658/1260–676/1277), the territories of the Mamluk sultanate expanded constantly within Syria. First, Baybars defeated the governor of Damascus, the S ˙ a¯lih ˙ ı¯ amir Sanjar al-H ˙ alabı¯, who had proclaimed himself autonomous ruler of Syria. As a result, Damascus and most of southern Syria, including Palestine, was annexed to the Mamluk sultanate. Afterwards, Baybars took over the districts that were governed by the Ayyu¯bid princes and annexed them to his sultanate as well. Aleppo was taken after its ruler, one of the amirs of al-Na¯s ˙ ir Yu¯suf, was deposed. Kerak was taken from al-Malik al-Mughı¯th in 661/1263. Similarly, Homs was incorporated to Egypt following the death of its prince al-Ashraf Khalı¯l Mu¯sa¯. In 671/1272, the lordship of S ˙ ahyu¯n fortress in Northern Syria passed into the sultan’s hands. The Ayyu¯bid princes of Hama became vassals of the Mamluks and the army of the district formed part of the armies of the Mamluk sultanate.10 Additional lands were annexed to the sultanate due to al-Z ˙ a¯hir Baybars’s offensive against the Crusaders. The remnants of Frankish principalities in Syria and Palestine interrupted the Mamluks’ continuous war against the ¯Ilkha¯nid Mongols, who ruled in Iraq and Iran. Moreover, some Frankish rulers collabo rated with the Mongols and assisted them in attacking Syria. The Frankish strongholds fell to al-Z ˙ a¯hir Baybars one by one: Caesarea, Arsu¯f, Jaffa, Beaufort, Tripoli, Safed, Montfort, Antioch and H ˙ is ˙ n al-Akra¯d (Crac de Chevaliers).11 After a short period in which two sons of al-Z ˙ a¯hir Baybars succeeded him as sultans, another S ˙ a¯lih ˙ i amir took the throne. This was Qala¯wu¯n, who took the title alMalik al-Mans ˙ u¯r. Under the reign of sultan Qala¯wu¯n (678/1279–689/1290), the Mamluk sultanate further expanded.12 Al-Mans ˙ u¯r Qala¯wu¯n acquired thousands of mamluks prior to his ascendancy to the sultanate and during his reign as sultan. This large body of mamluks was known as the Mans ˙ u¯riyya, taking their name from his royal title (al-Mans ˙ u¯r). After Qala¯wu¯n’s death, they became the largest and most powerful faction in the Mamluk sultanate for twenty years (689/1290–709/1310). In this study, this period will be called the Mans ˙ u¯riyya period.13 During this period two of Qala¯wu¯n’s sons and three of his mamluks ruled as sultans. The first to reign after his death was al-Ashraf Khalı¯l b. Qala¯wu¯n, who remained in power for three years (689/ 1290–693/1293). Next came his younger brother al-Na¯s ˙ ir Muh ˙ ammad b. Qala¯- wu¯n, who reigned twice as a minor, before he managed to establish and secure his reign (first reign 693/1293–694/1294 and second reign 698/1298–708/1309). AlNa¯s ˙ ir Muh ˙ ammad’s rule during both these short periods was nominal, and in practice the sultanate was governed by the amirs of the Mans ˙ u¯riyya. Three members of the Mans ˙ u¯riyya gained formal power and served as sultans during the Mans ˙ u¯riyya period: al-ʿA¯dil Kitbugha¯ (694/1294–696/1296), al-Mans ˙ u¯r La¯jı¯n (696/1296–698/1299) and al-Muz ˙ affar Baybars al-Ja¯shnakı¯r (708/1309–709/1310). It was only during his third reign as a mature adult (709/1310–741/1341) that alNa¯s ˙ ir Muh ˙ ammad became the sole ruler for a long period.
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